Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The technology that powers the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s main nuclear-weapon testing center is a viable bedrock for a nuclear fusion power plant, the lab’s director testified Tuesday in Congress. Based on data available today from Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), “it is feasible to develop a fusion energy power plant based on the inertial […]

PHOENIX – Winning support for a new low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee took a lot of time and friendly arm-twisting, a member of the House Appropriations Committee told the Waste Management Symposia Monday via electronic hookup from Washington, D.C. At various points, “we were stymied by […]

President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a classified memo establishing new rules for the permanent disposal of weapon-usable nuclear material and the handling of weaponizable radioactive substances, the White House announced. National Security Memorandum 19 “establishes the first comprehensive policy for securing radioactive materials, which present continuing domestic and global risk, along with new domestic […]

A nearly two year-old federal lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s planned plutonium-pit plant in South Carolina should enter its final stages this summer, recent court filings show. In a scheduling order filed Thursday, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina in Aiken ordered the environmentalists to […]

Over a year’s time, it is common for Department of Energy weapons complex sites to experience multiple fires that are recorded with the agency’s Occurrence Reporting and Processing System, according to a report from the agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments. “The number of reportable fires per year [over a seven-year-period] ranged from 4 to 10, […]

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said this week Russia will “suspend” its participation in the New START nuclear arms control treaty but adhere to the treaty’s limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons. Media widely reported Putin’s remarks. The Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted that Putin announced the suspension during a Tuesday address to Russian lawmakers in […]

Earnings improved at Fluor, Irving, Texas, in the fourth quarter, which the engineering and construction contractor for the Department of Energy attributed Tuesday to improved efficiency and certain financial adjustments. Net earnings for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 were $9 million, or a loss of $0.01 a share, up from a net loss of […]

SNC-Lavalin Group said this week it selected longtime Bechtel nuclear executive Jim Rugg to replace Tom Jouvanis as president of its Atkins Nuclear Secured Holding affiliate. Rugg, who spent more than 28 years at Bechtel, most recently as operations manager for defense and space, will officially become Atkins president on Feb. 27, according to the […]

Hundreds of employees evacuated the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main factory for nuclear-weapon secondary stages in Tennessee this week after a fire there, a spokesperson said. “There was a fire at approximately 9:15 involving uranium in Building 9212, a production facility onsite,” a spokesperson for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., wrote […]

Uranium broker and enrichment-technology developer Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., took a hit on the bottom line for 2022, though its core operations reported good health and revenue was nearly level year-over-year. Centrus’ net income fell 70% to about $52 million for 2022, according to the company’s Wednesday 10-K filing with the Securities & Exchange […]

Earnings fell at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., in the fourth quarter and 2022 as a whole, which the nuclear services company in a Thursday press release and conference call attributed partly to a tight labor market. The company also rattled off a list of big Department of Energy contracts it is pursuing.  Net earnings for […]

Editor’s note The Exchange Monitor this week hosted its annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit. The unclassified gathering draws government officials and industry executives from across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nuclear-weapons enterprise. The three-day summit is a professional conference for people in the nuclear-weapons business, which is a serious business.  Even so, there were a […]

ARLINGTON, VA. — The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will serve as a test-bed for some of the changes the National Nuclear Security Administration plans to make to the big site-management contracts of the future, an agency official said here. At “the Livermore Field Office … we are actually right now executing what’s called a model […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA. — With delays piling up for its two planned plutonium pit factories, the National Nuclear Security Administration already believes it will have to exceed the military’s minimum annual order for the nuclear weapon cores, the head of the agency said here Tuesday. “We anticipate that due to all the different things going on […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA. — The National Nuclear Security Administration could solicit bids for a new 10-year management contract for its uranium hub in Tennessee by spring of 2024, the head of the agency said here Tuesday. “The notional schedule is Y-12 is one year behind Pantex,” Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA. — The Los Alamos National Laboratory might still be able to make 30 nuclear-weapon cores before 2030, even though the equipment needed to do it is not supposed to be ready until then, the lab’s director said here Tuesday. In January, the lab’s owner, the Department of Energy, approved a formal cost and […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA — The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was set to fire the first test in its Nimble series of subcritical experiments in the late summer, a senior lab official said here Wednesday. “The first one [called Nob Hill] is scheduled for August of this year, the next one [Twin Peaks] will be hopefully a […]

ARLINGTON, VA. — The National Nuclear Security Administration changed the design for the nuclear core of a planned intercontinental ballistic missile warhead late last year, a senior agency official said here Tuesday. Altering the design of the W87-1 plutonium pit, being developed by the agency’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for the Air Force’s […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Upgrades to a nuclear-weapon test facility in Nevada are falling further behind schedule, government officials and weapon-site managers said here Wednesday. Officially called Enhanced Capability for Subcritical Experiments (ECSE), the upgrades involve expanding the Nevada National Security Site’s U1a underground complex and installing a sophisticated new x-ray camera to measure explosive plutonium […]

Alpha Safety Group on Friday said it entered into an agreement to acquire Pajarito Scientific Corp., Santa Fe, N.M., and merge the nuclear-waste-analysis company with its Golden, Co.-based NucFil LLC subsidiary.  Alpha Safety shared the announcement with the Exchange Monitor in a statement. In the statement, the company did not disclose the financial terms of […]

Two long standing government bosses, Jeffrey Allison and Randall Hendrickson, lead a joint team working out details of transferring responsibility for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina to the agency’s nuclear weapons branch from the nuclear cleanup office, feds said last week in Aiken, S.C. The group led by Allison, deputy […]

Congressional leaders asked the Department of Energy to turn over by Feb. 16 its communications with three national labs reportedly targeted in January by Russian hackers. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was among the labs the hackers targeted by, among other things, creating fake login pages and asking authorized users of the lab’s […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Monday published a draft solicitation for an indefinite-award, indefinite-quantity Counter Nuclear Smuggling System Deployment contract with an order ceiling of $800 million. “Contractors will be responsible for providing design, integration, construction, communications, logistics, training, and equipment procurement to support the deployment of counter nuclear smuggling systems,” the semiautonomous Department […]

Dallas-based Jacobs, a Department of Energy contractor, had earnings from continuing operations of $136 million or $2 million more than the $134 million recorded a year ago, according to its latest quarterly earnings report. Earnings per diluted share were $1.07, up 4 cents per share from the year-ago number of $1.03 per share, according to […]

Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) will continue as the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee in the 118th Congress, the committee announced this week. Among the subcommittee rank-and-file, there were only two changes. Democrats effectively expanded their Senate majority by one after November’s midterm elections, so […]

Another small business protested the Department of Energy’s award of a new contract to manage the agency’s National Training Center in Albuquerque. Chenega Reliable Services, a San Antonio, Texas-based small business subsidiary of Chenega Corp., Anchorage, Alaska, lodged the protest with the Government Accountability Office on Feb. 3. Chenega is the second of two losing […]